


maybe I could stay a while

by sinagtala (strikinglight)



Series: kiss prompts [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Cooking, M/M, Post-Canon, Roommates, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 07:30:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12700248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikinglight/pseuds/sinagtala
Summary: Daichi smells the ginger on the stairwell, four doors from home.





	maybe I could stay a while

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by Ny, for prompt #6: firm kiss. Title from John Mayer's "A Face to Call Home," which imho is _the_ Domestic Fluff Anthem.
> 
> I wanted to try writing an Ikedai from Daichi's POV, since in canon their relationship is viewed mainly through Ikejiri's eyes; I hope it worked out orz

Daichi smells the ginger on the stairwell, four doors from home. By the time he turns his key in the lock and steps past the threshold without announcing himself, the air is full of it.

He finds Ikejiri standing in the kitchenette with a pair of tongs in one hand, and what looks to be tonight’s shogayaki crackling in a frying pan before him. There’s a sociology book cracked open on the counter between the bowl of shredded cabbage and the half-grated ginger root, and a notebook and highlighter lying next to the sauce bowl; by the looks of it he’s been prepping for a test as well as for dinner, poor guy, and Daichi figures he’ll take the liberty of being a good roommate and setting these aside unprompted, on an eye-level shelf where they’ll be easy to spot later.

Moving the books must be a little bit like breaking a spell, because Ikejiri looks up and smiles, stirred out of his well-nigh inhuman concentration.

“Your mom called,” he says, in the same beat as he reaches down with the tongs and turns each paper-thin pork slice over one by one, brisk with the assurance of someone who’s done this many, many times before. “She said you have to make an honest man of me after we graduate, given all the housekeeping you make me do.”

 _I could never_ make _you do anything,_ Daichi almost says, as he watches the tongs move—watches Ikejiri’s hands, steady and sure. It’s been ages since those hands last touched a volleyball, a two-hour train ride and two cities and half a semester at an entirely new school away, but Daichi’s found it’s not so different as all that to see them engaged in other work. Modest, self-effacing, honest work, like typing out papers and turning the pages of a textbook, and cooking Real Meals for two perennially hungry boys in a dorm where half the population subsists on instant ramen.

“Penny for your thoughts?” He must look like he’s been taken so far out of himself, from the way Ikejiri raises his head and cocks a questioning eyebrow.

“You’re amazing,” he says. It feels at once woefully inadequate—he can never help feeling that _amazing_ is one of those big unspecific words that pretends to say a lot while in fact saying nothing at all—and more truthful than anything else he might say.

“Huh?” Ikejiri laughs, in the same beat as his right hand lays the tongs aside and reaches for the bowl of sauce, emptying it into the pan in a single, smooth motion. “No.”

 _Yes,_ Daichi wants to say, because he has faith in steady things. He’s never claimed to be wise, but this is one thing, at least, he can be certain of: far from being common, such constancy is rare. And therefore more than worth wondering at, and leaning into, desiring quietly to touch it and to look longer and to stay longer.

When Daichi kisses him it’s a little off-center, aimed half at his lips and half at the curve of his jawline, but for all that there’s conviction to the press of his mouth to Ikejiri’s skin. A certain firmness, as if there’s a point he wants to not only make but _emphasize._ In moments like this everything he can sense is Ikejiri, everything concrete and real and _here_ —the crackle of oil in a non-stick pan, the smell of ginger, warm, quiet breaths. And the motion of a pair of lips against his own, kissing back even as they quirk sideward in a smile.

“You’re gonna make me burn the pork.”


End file.
